


Nightmare

by Maura_Moo



Series: Our love will make headlines [2]
Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Acceptance, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Autistic Davey Jacobs, Comfort Object, Cora feels like she stands out, Do I?, Dreams, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Fear, First Love, Gay Newsies, Guilt, How Do I Tag, I Love You, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I dont know how to tag, I know its a "straight ship" in newsies, I need to start writing at a reasonable time, Inspired by Roleplay/Roleplay Adaptation, Jack being Jack, Jack kelly is a dad, Jack sucks him thumb and talks in his sleep., Les Jacobs - Freeform, Major Original Character(s), Mentioned Les Jacobs, Mentions of Blood, Minor Character Death, Minor Crutchie/Jack Kelly, Minor Injuries, Minor Romeo/Specs (Newsies), Minor Spot Conlon/Racetrack Higgins, Must Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Overstimulation, Panic Attacks, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Relationships, Please Don't Hate Me, Seperation, Why Did I Write This?, cora armstrong - Freeform, davey drools, female on female bullying, finch newsies, heatrosexual ship (im sorry), its 5:13 in the morning, kinda cannon era, mentions of jack kelly - Freeform, mentions of the sunrise, my own ship, newsies oc, nothing is straight about newsies, overworked newsies, racetrack - Freeform, softie davey jacobs, starts as angst, straight ship, the sunrise is pretty, touch sensitive davey jacobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:41:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24992476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maura_Moo/pseuds/Maura_Moo
Summary: falling is love is a hard thing when you've been doing it since you were four and without noticing.Cora has a realisation thanks to everyone's favourite crutch using newsie with a heart of gold.part two of- our love will make headlines.
Relationships: Crutchie Morris and original female character, crutchie x oc
Series: Our love will make headlines [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1804312
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Nightmare

**Author's Note:**

  * For [my friend mars](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=my+friend+mars).



> //Cora had fallen before. more times than she could remember and more times than she would care to admit. Her body was a roadmap of thick, unsightly scars, dents and mangled bones. Cora had fallen before. But never like this. 
> 
> Tumbles from trees were nothing
> 
> Falls from fences barely left a scratch. 
> 
> Plummets from penthouses and tumbles from trash cans gave her pained laughter and a few new scars. 
> 
> All things that would heal leaving only bittersweet dents and memories. But falling out of faith, out of love with someone. That was different. The scars don’t heal with that, they stay; sitting wild and open, seeping and bleeding into every aspect of your life. 
> 
> So even now as she stood, misty-eyed and heartbroken in front of David, her hands stuck out to timidly balance herself on the thin line between love and hatred. A tumble either side could spell the end of not only their relationships but the only stability Cora had ever had in her life. 
> 
> “P-please….please don’t go”

Cora had fallen before. more times than she could remember and more times than she would care to admit. Her body was a roadmap of thick, unsightly scars, dents and mangled bones. Cora had fallen before. But never like this. 

Tumbles from trees were nothing

Falls from fences barely left a scratch. 

Plummets from penthouses and trips of trash cans gave her pained laughter and a few new scars. 

All things that would heal leaving only bittersweet dents and funny memories. But falling out of faith, out of love with someone. That was different. The scars don’t heal with that, they stay; sitting wild and open, seeping and bleeding into every aspect of your life. 

So even now as she stood, misty-eyed and heartbroken in front of David, her hands stuck out to timidly balance herself on the thin line between love and hatred. A tumble either side could spell the end of not only their relationships but the only stability Cora had ever had in her life. 

“P-please….please don’t go” her voice was bland and lifeless and strained through angry bared teeth and tightly pressed lips. She could only watch, as he paced around their room, hands trembling by his sides. There’s only anger in the air as Davey tugs at the suitcase from the top of their wardrobe. 

She watched him pack his stuff, air from the open window tickling her back. Sometimes she rejoices in the fact that they left the lodgings for a house in downtown manhattan with two floors and full-length windows that soaked in the sun and the silhouette of the Hudson. Other times she feels like they are on show, a circus for people floating past on riverboats. 

The cold air felt like splinters and the freezing stillness of his red, tear-stained eyes felt like salt being pushed into her wounds. Her breathing quickens as fresh tears brew like water bubbling behind a damn. She reaches out for his hand, flinching when he shrugs away. Deep down she understood the anger he felt, the resentment to the girl he had loved since he was five. Although she didn’t know what she did, Cora was sorry. 

She longed for him to look at her the way he used too when they walked together, barefoot and chuckling. His eyes were always happy than; his voice sung like bluebirds and his eyes danced with nervous excitement. Davey Jones had been her selling partner, her bunkmate, her confidant, her leader, her one and only and at this moment her sorrowful boyfriend. But now he stood an enemy, a foe, a broken soul and a lost heart. 

“David please don’t go! Just look at me! Im sorry!” she grabbed ahold of his arm and watched him whirl forwards, suitcase in hand. Neither one of them had expected him to hit her with such force with the suitcase as he spun around. Neither of them anticipated her to collide and tumble through the full glass window. Neither one of them had foreseen the glass shattering under her light weight. 

Her life flashes before her eyes quickly, mind trying to giving her enough memories to reply that her heart feels settled. She waits from the group to smack her back. To hear the broken, sick shatter of her bones, to feel the squelch of her internal organs as they mash against the floor. 

Cora waits but it never comes. 

Instead, she wakes up fearful and started in the middle of her bunk. She's still in the lodgings, she can feel the body heat from Finch next to her. He doesn’t stir when she starts to breathe heavy and he simply rolls over when she snatches the blanket off her body and throws it on him. 

The broken steps are hard to manoeuvre with shaking legs and sweaty palms. Her knees collide with the hardwood a few times and she feels the skin split. She swears as she scans the room, she has to ground herself. 

Romeo is asleep with his arms on his stomach with his arms hanging over the top of the bunk with Specs buried under his left arm, his hands pawing at his lover's bare chest as they sleep. Race and Spot are cuddled up under a thin blanket, spooning. The twins, Mike and Ike are at opposite sides of the bunk. Everyone is all tucked up and asleep. Les rolls over, thumb pressed securely between his lips. His eyes are moving quickly under his eyelids and he purrs as he settles again. Davey lays next to him, hat laying across his chest, tucked securely under his right arm

Everyone is all tucked up and asleep.

Her eyes are caught by Davey's safety blanket. It stands out against the moonlight, its the only colour in the darkness. It’s yellow and soft, a well-worn silk corner tucked between his thumb and forefinger. It barely covers him and Cora remembers his shyness over the other Newsies seeing it for the first time. He had tucked it awkwardly under the uncomfortable, pale grey, itchy blankets of the lodgings. 

"They were meant to be white." Elmer had told her, her first night sleeping there and if she stared long enough, flecks of white stood out against the dirt like the fresh, untouched snow on top of the mountains that Jack painted. 

She had listened to him whine, tossing and turning as he tried to rub at the silk or bury his nose into the familiar warmth of his mother’s smell. She, if she thought hard enough, she could hear the others grumbling as Davey whimpered, hands drumming anxiously at the wall beside him. That night she had spent the night sitting with Davey in the living room. Cuddling on the couch, her petting his hair as he laid his head on her lap. He had apologised the next day when the others wandered down bleary-eyed and frowning. They had just accepted and Race had wrapped an arm around his middle and from that day on, Davey never hid the fact that his brain was different. 

He always told them when he felt overstimulated and they soon learned the telltale signs that he wasn’t his normally smart, sweetheart self. They had accepted his autism as quickly as they had accepted Cora’s. 

As she stared at David asleep, with his mouth open and blanket tucked across his tall frame as well as it could she couldn’t help but be proud of him. He looks calm when he sleeps.

She doesn’t mind the way David sleeps, flat on his back with his mouth open a line of drool dribbling slowly down his chin. It looks almost endearing; the fact the stressed lines of his face falter out when he sleeps. But she can’t stand there staring at him, searching for the small boy that she remembered from her past, or the fearfully out of place new Newsie, voice trapped behind anxiousness. 

Right now the walls felt like they were closing in and no amount of reminiscing would pump air into her lungs. Her legs pound from overuse and her knees bleed from the blunt force trauma from her bunk but she has to move, they feel like concrete and they drag her down into the pool of fear and anxiousness. 

“Not tonight” she whispered in between ragged breaths and with all her might she tugged her left leg up, planting it down inches away from her and then her right. It’s that simple; left, right, left, right. Like the sound of a heartbeat. That’s what she told herself as she wandered to the window and swung herself out of it. 

The feeling of the cold air strings as it whistles into her lungs, the spinning in her heard settles enough so she can see. The rough shaking of her hands sinks slowly, allowing it to roll down her body like waves instead of large crashing tsunamis. She stands for a second on the steps, relaxing her racing brain. Davey would never hurt her. Cora knows that. 

Doesn't she?

The David Jacobs that she met during kindergarten was a mild manner boy with a heart of gold and eyes of sparkling sapphires. They had spent nap time together and from that day on they had been best friends. He had been by her side through every second of her life, from heartbreak to first dances. 

Throughout all of their troubles and problems, Davey had been her one constant. She knew that she had helped him too. He would always tell her that he never regrets turning up for school that day, he never regretted anything as long as she was by his side. 

They had always been together, a twosome, a duo, a pair. So there was no way that he would turn his back on her now. Would he?

“No” she hissed through cold lips. Maybe creeping outside onto icy metal with bare feet and only her underclothes on was a bad idea. The wind stings against the bareness of her arms and the chill bites at her bloodied legs. Fearfully she creeps up the mental steps. 

She’s careful as she shifts her way onto the fire escape and nearly collapses to her knees when she reaches the top of the ladder and onto the metal. Cora is confronted instantly by Jacks sleeping face and she sighs in relief. 

No matter how much respect and love she had for Jack Kelly, the way the bags hung under his eyes and the way that he would snap at the Newsies over his morning coffee after looking after her made Cora’s heart shatter in a way that makes her hiss under her breathe. 

“Cora?” 

She looks up and follows the tired voice almost relieved when it comes from the younger boy that sleeps opposite his boyfriend so people don’t get the wrong ideas. Cora tries to smile at him but her lips betray her and the tears that she didn’t know were hiding just behind her eyes begin to leak forwards chilling instantly on her cheeks. 

“Cora shh. Shh, I'm on my way. Stay there. It's okay” Crutchie puffs out as he sits up and pulls himself up. He clanks his way across the fire escape, only temporarily distracted when Jack mumbles under his breath and rolls onto his side, placing his thumb in his mouth. He’s soon sitting next to her, arms wrapped around her in a tight hug. “What’s wrong? Whats gotcha up before the mornin' bell?” 

And that’s when she confesses. She confesses everything; the sleepless nights, the awkwardness she feels when she looks up at the lodgings sign, the anger she has over people separating her from the boys because of her sex, the guilt she feels over her families struggles, the fear she has over her younger brother and the fact that his ribs show through his shirt, the fact that the other girlsies frown upon her and call her names, how they target her and how people kick dirt in her eyes. 

By the time the topic of Davey comes up, she’s out of breathing and sobbing softly into Crutchie’s chest, arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders. “Have you told Davey?” he asks after three long seconds of silence. 

“No” she whispers, eyes shifting over his shoulder to the sky slowly paling over his shoulder. “I uhm...I’ve been 'aving nightmares” she admitted as she moved back into her own little kneeling position, hands tucked in between her thighs ashamed. 

“About Dave?” Crutchie has to stiffen a surprised laugh and apologises bashfully when Cora narrows her eyes at him. “Go on” 

She tells Crutchie everything about the nightmares, how she’s had them since she was twelve and they always end the same way, with her doing something to screw up their relationship and him accidentally killing her. He nods along tearfully and holds her hand while she mumbles out the steps of what happens. 

It’s a while before they speak again. Crutchie is the first one out of the duo to speak up. “You’re scared” 

“Of what?!” she scoffs out crassly “who?!” Fear is suddenly pounded through her body when Jack tosses back over and his feet brush against the metal railing as he stretches. They both hold their breath and release a collective sigh when he punches at the balled-up sheets he uses as a pillow and falls back to sleep without any words passed. “Davey? I can’t be scared of 'im, have youse met him, Charlie? He’s the sweetest person that walks the earth.” 

“No no no no!” Crutchie waves his hands insignificantly, lips pursing at the use of his real name. “You’re not scared _of_ Davey, you’re scared of the _feelings_ you hold for him.” 

Cora stares at Crutchie like he’s grown three heads and just told her that he’s Queen Victoria. “What?!” She hisses out. 

“You love him Cora. Tell him.” 

She goes to answer him, to bite back a retort but the yelling of the morning bell startles Jack awake. Cora helps Crutchie to stand and hugs him one last time before hovering by the ladder. “Hey Crutchie?” she hums out as she wanders down the first two runs. He hums at her. “I'll talk to him later” 

“Good girl” 

“Don’t call me that. I'm a Newsie now. One of youse guys now.” 

They all share a brief chuckle before Cora slides down the railings and creeps back into the room and into bed, so nobody is none the wiser that she has just had her world rocked. 

As she tiptoes back through the blissfully asleep young boys, her eyes land of Davey again. He’s rolled over, curled into the fetal position, still drooling. His hair sticks up with sweat and the corner of his lips are twitched into a light smile. It brightens his features.

She wonders about what she had told Jack, what she had called Davey the night before. The way she had lingered before looking Jack dead in the eye and whispering "Davey is my Santa Fe." Even as she thinks about it now, standing in the middle of the silent bedroom, her mind still hasn't changed. What Jack sees in the mountains and clay houses, she sees in David's warm smile and tight embrace; safety. Safety and freedom. 

She lingers on the way it felt when she was pressed against his chest, the way his heartbeat sounded like the calmest sound she had ever heard, like the steady beat of tap shoes. She lingers on the feeling that she has whenever she stares into her eyes. 

Maybe Crutchie was right. Maybe Cora was in love with David. 

Just maybe he was in love with her back. 

**Author's Note:**

> //hey so you read part two! I honeslty need to start writing at a time which is not sunrise for me, because it is lovely to watch the sunrise, its nicer to sleep before 7 in the morning. 
> 
> anyway, I really hope you liked this because I am really enjoying writing this. It will get better. I promise. 
> 
> dont forget to leave kudos and comments and if you want share part 1 and 2 with friends.


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